I have good reason to support green quantitative easing since, as far as I can find, Colin Hines and I were the first people to use the term. Maybe that’s why George Osborne is reluctant to embrace it. But he is definitely getting closer to adopting the idea. Yesterday the Treasury announced: Chancellor unveils more than Read the Rest…

Some days there is little or no news. On others it is as if it was planned that bad news should flood the media. The last couple of days have been bad news days. The government has announced draconian anti-union measures. Then it threatened the future of the BBC. And followed that with a demand that Read the Rest…

I am grateful to Jolyon Maugham for pointing out what might best be called the bleedin’ obvious. He has reminded me, via his blog, of this This has now been put forward as draft legislation in the summer budget, recently announced. There is just one problem though. As Jolyon puts it, You’ll remember the Read the Rest…

This letter was in the Guardian yesterday, from my Green New Deal colleague, Colin Hines: Larry Elliott is right to say that rather than crushing Greece’s economy and democracy, there should instead be a massive debt write-off and a return to sustainable economic activity in that cruelly ruined country (Condemned to debtors’ prison, barely a chink Read the Rest…

I saw this in the FT this morning: BHP Billiton expects to book a $2bn impairment charge following a review of its US shale assets. My friend and fellow Green New Deal group member Jeremy Leggett has long suggested such write dciowns were coming. Shale is not, to oput it bluntly, delivering on the promise. We Read the Rest…

The imposition of German demands on Greece, without consideration for its democracy, sovereignty or interests, is one of those moments that changes everything. I grew up with a European dream. Born in 1958 I was politically aware from a very young age. Much informed my early views, but most influences were, inevitably, personal. I wanted Read the Rest…

The Jubilee Debt Campaign has a long tradition in fighting on a single issue that has caused and reinforced a great deal of poverty, and in the process created major financial instability. This is, of course, debt in its various forms. As the say (in the following, edited, extract) in a new report entitled The Read the Rest…

This is from the EU summary of the deal made with Greece: On labour markets [Greece must] undertake rigorous reviews and modernisation of collective bargaining, industrial action and, in line with the relevant EU directive and best practice, collective dismissals, along the timetable and the approach agreed with the Institutions. On the basis of these Read the Rest…

Maya Forstater has a blog and draft report out this morning via the Center for Global Development in which she asks whethere it has been approprioate that, as she put it: International debates on taxation and development are increasingly informed by a popular narrative that there is a ‘pot of gold’ for development funding from Read the Rest…